


Come Heal This Hurt For Me.

by Mitooshka



Series: Of Mongrels & Men. [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Abuse, Comfort, Hurt, M/M, Nightmares, No Romance, Other, Sexual Assault, Violence, depictions of rape, friendship fluff, pure Cole friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 15:16:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4671425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitooshka/pseuds/Mitooshka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“When you don’t have a soul, the ideas inside you become terrible things. They grow unchecked, like malignant monsters. You cry in the night because you know the ideas are wrong—you know because people have told you that—and yet none of it does any good. The ideas are free to grow. There is no soul inside you to stop them.”  -- Rene Denfeld, ‘The Enchanted’.</p><p> </p><p>// Cole finds the utter desperation and pain of his cries to be too heart breaking; he was made to help but sometimes it's not about fixing the problem but rather mending the aftermath of it's damage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Heal This Hurt For Me.

_Hands paw at his back, at his legs, holding him down and forcing his coats open. He feels cold fingers, much too cold to be a human’s it seems, prodding at his flesh and touching tender places. He knows they are standing and they are watching and there it is, laughter behind him and snickers of pleasure. His breeches are pulled down, his own hands brought behind his back and a strong length of leather placed between his teeth.  
_  
  
_Chilling air washes over his back as he held down on his stomach and fingers skim his strong legs. He hears the panting of rough animals, he hears the thudding of feet around him. It is all much too loud, too overcome with senses he wants to scream.  
_  
  
 _He thrashes in the confines of his room, he lets his limbs go flying as he fights off whatever imaginary attackers lurk inside his mind. He feels his body blur around him, he feels the soft edges become jagged as he fictionalizes the red rivulets going down his legs and the tears down his cheeks.  
_  
  
 _He feels the hurt and the disgust and the vibrations of the men’s laughter and moans of pleasure. He feels everything and nothing all at once, wanting to numb the pain but feeling all too aware of the trauma at his back. Too aware of the feeling of something forcing itself into him, tearing him up from the inside out. How he wanted to scream but there wasn't enough noise in his lungs and how all around him he could only smell smoke, sweat and blood.  
  
  
     The biting sensation of a blade in his skin, the carving of the tip and the feeling of something wet and leaking.  
  
  
    He hates everything; the bluntness of this world, the anger and defeat in his muscles and most of all the way a foreign person's fingers could make his body feel like a possession. He becomes less than he is, ever was.  
_  
  
 _Some time he knows he drifts away from his body, he feels how the world falls and he becomes alive in the air and his body goes limp with suppressed emotion.  
_  
  
     The Inquisitor wakes up screaming and crying, clawing at his skin and gripping at the sheets. His eyes are open, wide and luminous in the dark but so unyielding when it comes to shock. His body is rigged and held firm, while his mouth is open and he feels bile rise in his throat.   
  
  
     He turns to the side of the bed, the basin beneath him and he retches violently.   
  
  
     His body falls slack with the effort and he curls into himself, his body hiccuping and shaking with fear and sudden remembrance.   
  
  
     There is a sudden weight on his bed and a thump of feet hitting the floor and Khalil cries out. His memory flashing back to…  
  
  
 _Pressing and pulling and filthy names being uttered.  
_  
  
 _“You like that, whore? You like that you dirty knife-ear, being fucked like a dog because you are one?”  
_  
  
 _“Look how he cries!”  
_  
  
 _“How pathetic! Not even a man!”  
_  
  
 _“No, he’s a mongrel, a worthless little knife-ear too good to even scrub my chamber pots!”  
_  
  
 _“He’s soft, like a girl, maybe he is one.”_  
  
  
     Khalil gathers himself up and scrambles back onto the top of the bed, pressing himself far into the headboard as he could possibly go. His mouth feels dry and acrid from the vomit and his chest falls heavily. He wants to disappear, sink into the ground and never be seen nor felt.  
  
  
     “You’re hurting, I have come to help.”   
  
  
     The voice is soft, tender almost and the shadow is suddenly illuminated by a soft light as a candle is lit. Cole’s barely-there eyes lo0k out at Khalil with all the patience and sweetness of a mabari. His one hand is on the bed, the other against his the left side of his chest, “I know you are hurting, it hurts right here doesn’t it?”  
  
  
     Khalil buries his head into the pillow he is suddenly clutching (for he doesn’t remember how it got there), and trying to desperately to make himself small. He doesn’t know where the hurt starts and where it ends, he hasn’t known for a very long time.  
  
  
     “I would take away the hurt if I could, I would make them suffer like they made you suffer.” Cole says in a quiet voice, his tone barely above that of a whisper but Khalil can hear. His ears twitch and he sniffles a little, wiping his face against the pillow.  
  
  
     He stays silent for a moment and then says, his own voice broken and rough as if he has swallowed smoke, “there could never be enough done.”  
  
  
     Cole shakes his head, lowering his gaze at his lap, “...no you’re right, there cannot be enough in this place to make the sting go away...but maybe, maybe I can make the blade dull.”  
  
  
     “Cole...please go away.” The small elf says this with a whimper, his entire body tense and ready for a fight if need be. Though of course he does not know if he would be able to bring up the strength to use daggers at this moment.   
  
  
     “She is warm when she looks at you, like the first summer day when the goldenrod blooms. You feel the shyness in her eyes and her fingers give you comfort. She weaves your hair into intricate patterns, you are alive in this moment.”   
  
  
     Khalil can feel Cole in his mind, projecting images of Josephine and her always soft hands, he feels the rays on his face and how she would sit beside him and tell him stories of Antiva.   
  
     “So young really but he must always be kept safe. I’ve known so many heroes, I’ve known their blood and bone and the soft spots in their heart. I want him to be protected, I want those soft spots to remain soft, I want him to win and stay heroic. I want people to write stories of his rises, not his falls.”   
  
  
     Cole moves closer, his hand touching Khalil’s bare ankle and the elf flinches back, a harsh noise of expelling air entering the room. Cole keeps his hand there and the dark elf looks at him only slightly from the corner of his eyes, he sees Cole focus on him and see Varric’s hands tightening the buckles on his armor. He feels the straps compress his chest, feels the way the greaves hug his forearms. He feels the dwarf’s watchful gaze and the sad smile that has seen the desperation of many men.   
  
  
     “He teaches you words in hopes you may learn to form your own, his laughter is like the butterflies you think though you forget which ones. Sometimes he is sad and you catch him looking out the window and wonder if he is as trapped as you are. But he is always bright and loud and oh so, calm. You feel his words and his rhythm, you feel his hope and truth.”  
  
  
     Khalil presses his face into the pillow and let’s his body slacken just a little from the boy’s words. He wishes he had died sometimes, back in that forest with those hunters, he wishes he hadn’t had to live with their permanent reminder on his skin. There are moments he flutters back to that night, when he had been worked over so much that nothing had spilled from his mouth except elvish prayers and he wants to cut off all the bits of himself.  
  
  
     Cole’s hand drifts higher until it settles on Khalil’s thigh and he feels the way Cole’s eyes trace over the slight rise in flesh on it.   
  
  
     “You try and cut pieces of yourself out of you, you try and erase all the mistakes that happened in hopes that it erases you. You are not mistake.”  
  
  
     Khalil coughs into a cry and he sobs helplessly into the blankets at his chest. There are a few moments where neither make any noise and Cole just keeps his fingers on the raised skin, he keeps his balance perfectly on the bed and Khalil catches his breath, let’s the tears soak into the fabric.   
  
  
     “His hurt touches your own.” Cole finally says and retracts his hand.   
  
  
     The elf looks at him, dark eyes round and softened by his tears and he feels so much like his age; like he only twenty one summers, like he had not enough years to explain the things he had felt.   
  
  
     “There are parts of you both that is too...dimmed, not enough light to see. Scratching, biting, burning, too little help, not enough inner peace and too much violence. You hurt differently but there is still, pain, pain, pain.”  
  
  
     Khalil sits up a little, his hair tangled in a mess around him from his never ending flailing. He shakily moves downward until he is sitting near Cole. The boy looks at him and Khalil sees the silver of his eyes, sees the emptiness and yet it is comforting and he feels the strange warmth radiating off him. Khalil does not know what sort of spirit Cole is, whether or not Solas tries to tell him, he believes he is a good one. He remembers the envy demon and the way Cole had struggled to aid him despite the conflict.  
  
  
     Slowly the boy puts his arms around Khalil, spindly and awkward at first and the elf freezes and tenses up as if touched by ice. He waits, wondering what Cole is doing until finally asking in a hoarse voice, “Cole, you can stop.”  
  
  
     “I can’t, not until it stops.”  
  
  
     “Until what stops?” Khalil pulls back slightly, looking at him straight on.  
  
  
     Cole murmurs and his hand takes Khalil’s and places it over the elf’s heart. “Until that despair in your chest stops howling.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This was something difficult to write about seeing as it touches home for some people out there most likely, but it was something I definitely wanted to write. It explains why my Inquisitor is the way he is; how he has little hope for affection and love and carefulness. How he's reckless and uncaring and ultimately it's because he hasn't felt like he belongs to himself in a long time. 
> 
> Follow me on tumblr @ elvenking-mitya to give me prompts and ask questions!


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